2011-05-03

After a long winter of skiing I've finally had enough. I put the misery sticks away and sharpened the ice tools. Raphael Slawinski and I made plans to go check out an alpine ice line that had caught his eye. He had scoped the line while climbing the classic mixed route Rocket Man. It is located just to the right of the iconic route Riptide in the spectacular cirque below Mt. Patterson .

At first glance it looks like it is threatened by seracs but up close they seem fairly benign. We climbed the route in 6 pitches. To access the ice we climbed 3 very alpine like pitches with thin ice and scrappy mixed climbing. Once we were established on the ice, three sustained pitches brought us to the top of the seracs.